100% Achievement Guide

How to get all of the achievements in 7 Days to Die, including some time-saving shortcuts!

Foreword

---

04/26/2022 UPDATE: Added the new Achievement icons and also updated the respective Achievement unlock conditions, where necessary; in which case, you'd be looking for the value after the '/' to see the updated numbers. Some of the methods detailed here may not be as necessary since the developers wisely cut down on the Achievement requirements needed in several cases (Player Deaths / Kills, in particular), but I'll still leave them here for anyone that needs them!

---

WARNING: This guide does suggest usage of mods in several cases to speed things up, but those suggestions are only a requirement in one case for the Meet Your Maker achievement! Also - it is very important that any achievement-hunting be done with Cheat/Creative Mode off! Otherwise you're just wasting your time~

---

Hi there everyone, and welcome to my first ever Steam guide!

I've noticed some people were unsure of the best and/or fastest ways of getting the Achievements in this game, and thought I could help! I previously achieved a platinum in this game some time ago on PS4, and just recently hit 100% in the Steam version.

Now, most of the Achievements are nothing too involved - 'kill X number of zombies/players' or 'craft X number of items' etc. Yet, a few are a mind-numbing chore to grind out - namely Meet Your Maker and Neil Armstrong, due to the numbers needed in unlocking them; well, that and, most people play survival games to avoid dying, so racking up 500 deaths could take a while...

Fortunately, I have a work around that will shred the time needed for this one. I also detail a more player-involved method of achieving 1,000 km traveled, instead of the tried-and-true method of a rubberband around your joysticks to have your character walk in circles (I used this method myself on the PS4 version, and that controller still pulls to the left til' this day!).

But enough jib-jab - on to the guide!

---

(Also as a side note - keep in mind that all numerical Achievements are tracked across ALL saves/characters, including multiplayer games; but you MUST be playing on Alpha 20.1, or any other Alpha before Alpha 20! Achievements are bugged on Alpha 20 for some reason, SO BE SURE YOU'RE PLAYING ON THE RIGHT VERSION, OR YOU WON'T UNLOCK A SINGLE ACHIEVEMENT!)

Achievements I~V: Beginner Quest

• Cause he's the Ax Man: Craft your first Stone Ax
• Good in the sack: Place your first bedroll, old bed, or king sized bed
• Playing Doctor: Stop a critical bleed-out with a bandage, first aid bandage or first aid kit
• Handy Man: Craft your first wood frame
• The Homestead Act: Place your first Land Claim

All of these Achievements - besides Playing Doctor and The Homestead Act - will be naturally earned during the starter quest.

The former can be earned soon enough, as most zombies will/can cause bleeding when hitting an unarmored character. Just bind the wound with the First Aid Bandage that all players spawn with, and you're good to go,

The latter is even easier, as you only need plop down the Land Claim Block that you also spawned in with.

Easy peasy.

Achievements VI~VIII: Crafting

• Alexander Bell: Craft 50 items
• Benjamin Franklin: Craft 500 items
• Henry Ford: Craft 1500 items
• Thomas Edison: Craft 5000 items

This set of Achievements should come somewhat quickly and naturally through normal play.

However, the process can be sped up exponentially by using fast/instant craft mods; what could take days, weeks, or months (depending on how much you play - it could boil down to hours for some) can easily be cut into mere minutes, as the player doesn't have to wait for crafting timers.

As far as I know, crafted items are counted across all methods - be it the player's backpack, campfire, workbench, forge, and/or chemistry station.

Pretty straightforward stuff.

Achievements IX~XII: Zombie Kills

• The Grave Digger: Kill 10 zombies
• The Embalmer: Kill 100 zombies
• The Mortician: Kill 500 zombies
• The Funeral Director: Kill 2500 zombies

These should also come naturally through gameplay, as killing zombies - to most players, for certain - is the whole point of the game. Crafting and building, be damned!

However - as before - we can use mods to ease the player's burden. Mods that increase the standard spawn rate (I usually play with x10 spawns, for example) will cut the time invested considerably; throw in increased spawns for wandering hordes, and it gets even better.

There are also mods to drastically increase blood moon spawns as well, if having loads of zombies to deal with during the day isn't enough!

Again, straightforward stuff, and these can be achieved without much special effort.

Achievements XIII~XVI: Player Kills

• Napoleon: Kill 10 Players / Kill 1 Player
• Julius Caesar: Kill 50 Players / Kill 5 Players
• Genghis Khan: Kill 100 Players / Kill 10 Players
• Alexander the great: Kill 250 Players / Kill 25 Players

Now, these are the ones most people seem to have trouble with. It's quite understandable, given that PVP in this game certainly doesn't put forward its best qualities. Also, most people tend to play this game for the survival experience, and not to gun each other down.

So that said, what is the quickest way to rack up so many player kills...? EASY.

Right-click on the game in your library, select 'BETAS' and switch to Alpha 15.2. Why so far back, you may ask? Well, Alpha 15.2 was the proud possessor of a dirty little glitch that will alleviate the painstaking need to slaughter so many of your fellow survivors.

It's this simple.

Load in to Navezgane on an Alpha 15.2 world. Hit F1, activate creative mode, then fly to the nearest trader. Deactivate creative mode (after landing, naturally - you don't want to be a grease spot, after all - and you can't unlock achievements with it on!) then enter the trading post.

Pull out your torch, and wack the trader a couple of times.

Congratulations - you've just killed 250 players. It sounds ridiculous, but it absolutely works, I just did it the other day myself!

---

EDIT: Trader locations are different in the Alpha 15.2 map vs newer Alphas; check here for details -> Navezgane[7daystodie.fandom.com] (Thanks to PuppyExorcism for pointing this out!)

EDIT2: I've heard that this method may have been recently patched out - if anyone can confirm in the comments below, please let me know so I can fix this section as needed, thanks! (As far as this being patched out in a previous Alpha - I don't believe such is actually possible. However, I will leave this disclaimer here, until I get a second report that the glitch isn't present in Alpha 15.2) (This is inaccurate; apparently the user in question forgot to toggle creative mode off before attempting. Thanks again to PuppyExorcism for verifying!)

EDIT3: The Darkness Falls[7daystodiemods.com] mod may also provide a way of getting this achievement, through killing raider NPCs; I will test this soon, and post results! (Thanks to Brevan for the suggestion!)

EDIT4: As of 10/16/2023, this trick still works as advertised, thanks to RTXMorshu for letting me know!

EDIT5: According to Sparkle Death Princess below (and my own experience on PS4, to some extent), the achievements may not pop immediately; if this happens in your case, moving the torch to the first slot of the hotbar may help!

EDIT6: A new tip from KayaNatsumi:

Great guide! Regarding "Achievements XIII~XVI: Player Kills" the achievement is triggered by trader being on fire. See console before he burns and during. There will be messages running when he is burning, about these achievements being set. It might be good idea to spawn bow and fire arrows in creative mode to get this with one hit. I can confirm it still works after 1.0. Just a note: after you make trader burning last achievement might be earned after you leave the game.

---

Achievements XVII~XX: Distance Travelled

• Christopher Columbus: Travel 10 Kilometers
• Ferdinand Magellan: Travel 50 Kilometers
• Marco Polo: Travel 250 Kilometers
• Neil Armstrong: Travel 1000 Kilometers

This is where the true grind begins; out of all them, the final in this series - Neil Armstrong - will likely take longer than any other achievement, save for possibly Meet Your Maker.

If you want an effortless, yet rather time-consuming method, you could do one of the following:

A) If using a controller, wrap a rubberband around it in such a way to pull the joysticks - both left and right - to one side, so your character simply walks in circles. From having used this method on the PS4 version, I can tell you - it takes forever. Not only that, you run the risk of ruining a controller, as it will always pull to one side.

...or...

B) If using a keyboard and mouse, place something with a little weight on the 'W' key to keep your character moving forward, while having the mouse tilted to one side or the other (and obviously, you'd want to use a wired mouse for this, so it doesn't autosleep or run out of batteries!). Alternatively, one could easily find any number of computer macro programs to automate the process, I'd imagine...

But I didn't use either of the above methods. If you've been following the pattern in this guide thus far, you likely guessed it - I used mods. Anything that permanently increases the player's movement speed can help (usually found in skill/perk mods), and anything with faster vehicles could potentially help.

The method I used was a skill mod that added skills for increased movement speed. After maxing all these out, I enabled creative mode to give myself Steroids and Megacrush (unsure if these actually stacked, but there it is), and most importantly to give myself Rocket Boots. Also, do not neglect Parkour - if you forget this, you can easily suicide with the high jumps the boots allow.

Using Rocket Boots allows for a more interactive experience from rubberbanding your controller, and enables the player to multitask with working towards other achievements at the same time; unfortunately, this was the last achievement I needed, so I spent a few hours just hopping back and forth instead.

Another method is to activate creative mode to enable flying, then turn creative mode off. Flying then will count as actual movement, though it doesn't seem to be terribly fast, even with speed enhancements. Just keep in mind, that vertical movement does not count at all!

---

EDIT: This method may be a bit spotty; I remember it working when I tried it, yet others have reported that they had no luck with it - I'd personally stick to Rocket Boots, or maybe a vehicle! Thanks to Braymann for letting me know!

---

In my experience Rocket Boots racked up distance much faster than any other method; and I tried all the vanilla vehicles and flying as well. Yet personal preference will dictate the player's individual method, obviously.

At the chance of making a cringe-worthy pun, I'll just say... that your mileage may vary!

---

EDIT: Another method - and perhaps the fastest yet - provided by asdfchlwnsgy1236 in the comments below: "...it is possible to change the flying speed of creative mode. You just need to use the console command as . For example, typing in as 100 in the console makes the flying speed 100 times as fast. It is definitely faster than any other method.

Of course, making the number too high causes errors from loading and unloading regions too quickly, and I have found that 100 is a reasonably stable high value." Thanks again to adsdfchlwnsgy1236 for letting me know about this!

---

EDIT: Yet another method provided by The_Old_King in the comments below:

there's a better way of doing the Neil Armstrong achievement, if you go into the commands and do "buff god" and then teleport to 0, 0, 10000000, you will just get the achievement instantly.

Some clarity on this method from BYKOS below:

create a new game, press F1 and enter "teleport 0 0 10000000"

---

Achievements XXI~XXIV: Number of Deaths

• Bite the dust: Die 5 Times / Die 1 Time
• Knock em Dead: Die 25 Times / Die 7 Times
• Your Number's Up: Die 100 Times / Die 14 Times
• Meet Your Maker: Die 500 Times / Die 28 Times

In standard gameplay, these will likely be the last Achievements a player would ever receive; we play the game to survive, after all, not to die!

There are ways of making this grind extremely easy, however. Certainly easier than the Neil Armstrong achievement, as we can easily automate this task, through... who guessed it...? MODS.

Now, what we are looking for is a particular mod. One that affects respawn times...

I downloaded this one: Hardcore Respawn[7daystodiemods.com]

Download then pop it in your Mods folder and look in the included Config folder - next comes a little .xml chicanery. What we're going to do first is open the entityclasses.xml, and change it to remove respawn wait period, as well as death animations and ragdolling on death as follows: (looking for HasDeathAnim, HasRagdoll, TimeStayAfterDeath)



After that, we'll look in to buffs.xml - within the same folder - and make a few tweaks. Essentially, we've removed the lines that were there - from CarryCapacity to RunSpeed - and increased the HealthMax and StaminaMax to 500 (which will be subtracted).



Now - full disclosure, here - I used the same method before, but I'm pretty sure I used a different way of subtracting health from the player. Yet the result we're going for should be pretty obvious; once the player dies, they will respawn quickly, die again, respawn, die... And so on. It works very well, and is much quicker than any other method you'll likely find elsewhere.

One caveat, however, is to do this trick on a random gen map. When I tried it on Navezgane, it would crash every 20 deaths or so; I assume this is due to trying to respawn the player in random places, while random gen seems to have a static spawn point outside of bedrolls.

Achievements XXV~XXVIII: Fortitude

• Alive and Kicking: Reached 4 in Fortitude
• Fit as a Fiddle: Reached 6 in Fortitude
• Healthy as a Horse: Reached 8 in Fortitude
• The Picture of Good Health: Reached 10 in Fortitude

These are some of the most easily-attained Achievements, barring those for the starter quest. They used to be much harder when the Wellness system was still a thing, as that stat could fluctuate through damage received and/or not eating often enough.

Easily gained through play if the player is a Fortitude-centrict build.

As straightforward as can be!

Achievements XXIX~XXXIII: Gamestage / Level Reached

• Scavenger: Reached Gamestage 5 / Reach Gamestage 10 (Now "Reached Level 7")
• Adventurer: Reached Gamestage 25 (Now "Reached Level 28")
• Nomad: Reached Gamestage 125 / Reached Gamestage 50 (Now "Reached Level 70")
• Warrior: Reached Gamestage 250 / Reached Gamestage 100 (Now "Reached Level 140")
• Survivalist: Reached Gamestage 500 / Reached Gamestage 200 (Now "Reached Level 300")

(Yes, two of these Achievements share an icon; maybe they could've just made one of them bronze-colored...?)

---

EDIT: There is a slight difference in the shading of the Adventurer/Warrior trophies, as pointed out by Uradamus in the comments below!

---

Another set of Achievements that are pretty easy to gain through normal gameplay, the key here is to remember that gamestage is limited by the selected difficulty in addition to the player's current level; in short, Insane difficulty with a high-level character is the only way to get the last of these!

Alternatively... if the player doesn't care about gameplay, and just wants these as fast as possible, it's as easy as hitting F1, giveselfxp some massive number, then setday 999999999. This should easily unlock the lot of them in one swoop. It will be pretty obvious if you use this method, however, as they'd all unlock at the same time...

---

EDIT2: This set of achievements was changed w/ 1.0, as reported by NeighMeansNeigh in the comments below - thanks for letting me know!

---

"As of the 1.0 update, gamestage achievements have been replaced with "Reach level 7/28/70/140/300""

Achievements XXXIV~XXXVIII: Hidden Achievements

• On top of the world: Get up to the 255 meter height in a game
• Dig Deep: Get down to 3 meters or bedrock in a game
• The polar bare club: Be naked, feels like temperature 0 degrees or lower, and 100% wet
• Dirty Larry: Kill 44 punks with a .44 magnum
• Evil Knievel: Break your leg

The hidden Achievements in this game are perhaps more interesting than all the others, simply due to the fact that they each require particular conditions to unlock. None of them are difficult to achieve, but they are at least each unique.

For the first, On top of the world, you need to achieve a height of 255 meters. Your current height can be found on the Map screen, and some custom HUDs include it right next to the player's health, etc. This one is quite easy to attain, as you merely need to nerdpole straight up; starting from a building top can make this quicker, and turning enemy spawns off can help avoid a deadly fall.

---

EDIT: Evidently this one can be earned via flying high enough with a gyrocopter as well. While it seems obvious, I totally overlooked it - unfortunately the PS4 version of 7 Days to Die doesn't have anything more than motorbikes. So I simply gave the easiest method that worked for me there. But thanks to zaphodikus for the heads up!

---

Next, Dig Deep, is as simple as digging straight down until hitting bedrock. An auger or pickaxe will speed things up greatly, but isn't required. Again, creative mode can help here if the player is feeling particularly lazy...

For The polar bare club, it's as simple as being naked and jumping into a body of water in a snow biome. I've seen other people have trouble with this for some reason; I got it on literally the first body of water I jumped into. So if the first one doesn't work, keep trying!

---

EDIT: Due to the 'newbie coat' all new players receive upon spawning in, you may have to wait until hitting Level 6 to get this one (as the buff disappears then). Thanks to GuyMonkey for reminding me about this!

---

The Dirty Larry achievement has confused more than a few players, yet 'punks' in this case just means killing 44 zombies, and not bandit NPCs or similar. One thing to remember however, is that the standard .44 must be used for this, the Desert Vulture will not count!

Lastly is Evil Knievel, which many players will get through the common practice of jumping from rooftops while avoiding zombies. Another method is to simply nerdpole oneself to a height of 20 frames, and jump - the Achievement should pop right after, assuming you survive!

Achievements XXXIX~XLIII: Time Survived

• Brush with Death: 50 Minutes Lived in a single game / 60 Minutes Lived in a single Game
• Near Death Experience: 150 Minutes Lived in a single game / 180 Minutes Lived in a single Game
• Cheated Death: 500 Minutes Lived in a single game / 600 Minutes Lived in a single Game
• Nearly Immortal: 1250 Minutes Lived in a single game / 1680 Minutes Lived in a single Game

---

EDIT: These Achievements may more accurately be seen as 'time played' rather than 'time survived', as reported below by KinoSali. If anyone can confirm similar occurrences, leave a comment below!

---

These Achievements are also gained through normal gameplay; that is, assuming you don't die!

To completely circumvent any challenge involved, these Achievements can be earned through zero effort by simply turning enemy spawns off... Then just waiting, and keeping fed/hydrated.

They aren't terribly hard to earn legitimately, in all honesty. As long as you're careful...

---

EDIT: Got another method, from a (few) comment(s) by Frost:

Achievements XXXIX~XLIII: Time Survived

For this achievements you can also use the god buff as The_Old_King mentioned for the travel achievements.
So if you turn off enemies and go for F1 and type in buff god, then you can farm this totaly afk.
I mean you could also leave enemies on when you are in god mode but its maybe anoying if you dont want your base destroyed.

(another comment from Frost)
I disabled the zombie AI to avoid block destructions and used the god mode to avoid starving and dying of thrist.

(more input from Frost)
I am still working on the 1680 minutes and the method is working totaly fine for me.

EDIT: Another method from CheemCheem:

What I ended up doing for Nearly Immortal:
Start a new world with no zombies,
Type "buff god" in command
Press F1, type dm, then smash that "+" button on your numeric pad, you have to press it like 30 times
Type dm again to close it
Now your game will run 2 times faster, so instead of 28 hours you will have to wait 14h

Note: if you exit the game and come back, your game will run at normal speed, you can simply accelerate it again with + in dm mode, it will not cut the timer, just dont forget to turn dm off

Closing~

...And that's all there is to it!

Hopefully this guide has provided some.... well, guidance... to those that are having some difficulty getting the Achievements in 7 Days to Die.

If there are any errors or additional tips that I missed out on, let me know in the comments and I'll happily amend the guide with credit on the tip(s) given.

Thanks for reading, and keep on survivin'!

[LazyMind82]

Thank You for good guide

[Zubek]

I can confirm that the Alpha 15.2 torch trick still works as of May 2025

[Mr. Von Grimmsy]

@ChocUK22 Happy to hear that the guide helped!

[ChocUK22]

As of 1st May the level reached still works on current version of game, just need to exit to get achievements to pop. Thank you so much for guide helped alot

[Mr. Von Grimmsy]

@BAC hazeforest You may be right about a head start making a difference; we'd obviously need others to come forward to confirm whether or not they unlocked it under similar circumstances to be sure...

But I'm glad the guide was helpful! Good luck with the last 3!

[hazeforest]

@Mr. Von Grimmsy yeah I had to restart the game once to get the last kill related achievement but other than that it worked pretty good, I had a few kills already by farming my friend beforehand so maybe that made a difference? haha anyway thank you very much for the guide! Only 3 achievements missing for me

[Mr. Von Grimmsy]

@BAC hazeforest hey, glad to hear it worked for you! Ironically enough it doesn't work as easily for some folks, such as the conversation Smokey and I were having just recently.

[hazeforest]

The method to get the player kills by switching to A15.2 and whacking the trader with a troch still works as of 2/2/2025 :D

[Mr. Von Grimmsy]

@Smokey for sure, I'm happy it was of some help at least!

[Smokey]

@Mr. Von Grimmsy
yeah very odd how it doesn't work for some people.
The method I mentioned that worked was very quick and I got the achievements instantly.
none the less, thank you for the guide. its been very helpful!!!